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‘Saw II’ Director Adapting His Own Radical Comic ‘Abattoir’

Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman is adapting some familiar material for his next film: Abattoir, the comic he developed for Radical Comics a few years back. Variety reports that the project is currently in the works at Radical Studios.

The comic finds real estate agent Richard Ashwalt tasked with selling a beautiful old house that set the stage for a horrific murder. A creepy old man named Jebediah Crone wants to buy the place, but Ashwalt refuses, sending him down a path of horror and suspense that brings him into Crone’s strange world.

Bousman developed the six-issue series in 2010 for Radical with writers Rob Levin and Troy Peteri and artist Bing Cansino. Christopher Monfette penned the screenplay. The production is in the casting process with an eye toward shooting early in 2014 ahead of a fall release

On a recent episode of the horror podcast Killer POV, Bousman talked a bit about the project, noting that it came from a desire to tell a brand new kind of haunted house film. “It’ll tell you what the the comic book is and it’s kind of a continuation,” he said. “It’s basically the story of Jebediah Crone who, for hundreds of years, has been showing up to crime scenes. He buys the house and then rips the room out in which the death occurred. It’s about the investigation to find out what he’s been doing with these rooms, where he’s using them.

“From a visual standpoint as a director, you’re not dealing with a house of all the same rooms. You’re dealing with a house with a room from the 1800s then a French chalet from 1900s, then a Victorian room and he’s smashing these rooms together to build a Rubicks Cube haunted house.”

Bousman added that the film will deal with the character of Crone, but notes that the comic actually leads into the film and includes a lot of background on the character.

This marks the third high-profile film project from Radical Studios. They had Oblivion starring Tom Cruise out earlier this year as well as the Brett Ratner Hercules film starring Dwayne Johnson that wrapped last month.